mark42 wrote:On page 27, which is for January 25, it says that Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV went to Canossa in 1848. That year, though, is centuries off. The actual year was 1077.

Whoa! I wonder if I had another event there that I subbed in at the last minute.

It looks like it was just an editing goof. The first section for January 25th is labeled "Cold Shoulders" and is about infamous snubs, so the Canossa event makes sense. I noticed that on the following page, the page for January 26th, the top section also has the year 1848, so I'm guessing this is the root of the error.

I can't be certain without checking the source material in The Wizard of Oz (or Fred Worth's book), but based on a huge preponderance of Google hits (13K vs. >3K), it looks like Henkle --> Henkel in the wizard's full name: Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, which appears three times in the first several paragraphs of Chapter 11 of Brainiac (pp. 159-60 in the paperback edition). I noticed this only because this FJ from June 29, 2004, came up at random today on the j-archive.com site, and I wondered if maybe Ambroise was misspelled.

Ken Jennings wrote:It's "Henkle" in Worth, which may be where the error was introduced if it's wrong. So Jeopardy had "Henkel"?

Hey, you're the one who saw the clue live... going on seven years ago.

In the unofficial, fan-created Jeopardy! Archive record of this game:
http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?g ... ght=henklethe clue said Henkle. Today I suggested to the archivists that a fix might be in order. Maybe someone involved with the J! Archive has access to a record from the show. If I hear anything, I'll let you know.

But even if J! got it wrong... well, do fixes like this ever get made in subsequent book printings? Does anyone know if the wizard's full name ever appears in one of Baum's books?

I was reading the Kindle version and it states that Ardmore, Alabama is 100 feet from Ardmore, Louisiana. It should be Ardmore, Alabama is 100 feet from Ardmore, Tennessee. Not a big mistake, but I spent some time trying figure out where Alabama and Louisiana where that close to each other.

A couple other forehead slappers in Maphead that have been pointed out to me: I call John Glenn the first man to orbit the Earth, which is only true if Yuri Gagarin was a vampire or a werewolf or something. I also say that Chicago is the only top-ranked US college or university that still has a geography department. That's not true; Dartmouth does as well.

On June 3, when you attended the Scripps National Spelling Bee at Washington D.C., I was able to listen to your speech on the quest for knowledge. Afterward, all the spellers were given an autographed copy of your Trivia Almanac and in keeping with your journey to the fact finding frontier, I began reading and I love it. I also discovered a few fallacies.

I will post them individually.

Sincerely,
Emc2

Last edited by Emc2 on Thu Oct 06, 2011 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

2) March 11- In your fact for "You'll Never Wok (a Loan)," you state that "ponya...which would make it the only English loanword from Nepali"(101). Because I was in the spelling bee and read the Webster's Third New International Dictionary, I found that there is another Nepali descent word in English. In the New Third International, "jharal," a Nepali word, means a Tahr, or goat.

6) July 11- In "The The"(277), question 2, it states "What tiny West African nation added a "The" to its name when it gained independence on April 24, 1970?"(277). According to Wikipedia and other sources I googled, while The Gambia became a republic on 4/24/1970, it actually gained independence from the British Commonwealth on 2/18/1965.

Being independent and being a part of a republic is different. In our country, it's 2 totally different political parties.

August 25- In "Lone Rangers" in question 4 of "Yeah, Good Luck," Nevada actually has 2 national parks. According to the World Almanac 2011, Nevada has the Great Basin (which is in the answer key) and Death Valley national park. Death Valley is found in both CA and NV, so the question could be reformatted as "What's the only national park found in only one of these in these U.S. states?"

Sincerely,
Emc2

Last edited by Emc2 on Wed Oct 05, 2011 6:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I hope emc2 won't mind me posting in his thread...someone pointed out a Maphead goof that's a bit of a forehead-slapper. On page 238, I claim to live near 48 degrees N, 122 degrees E. I hope not, since that's the middle of the Manchurian wastes. That should read 122 degrees WEST.

Yep, the Ardmore thing has been mentioned on a couple other threads--or maybe even this one? In any case, Ardmore TN became Ardmore LA at some point in the writing process, to my eternal shame. It will be fixed in the paperback.

Page 27 of Junior Genius Guides - Maps and Geography made with laugh with "Sears Tower." In San Francisco, Army St. was renamed Cesar Chavez St. in 1995, but some locals still refuse to use the new name. Is it the same thing in Chicago with Willis Tower not used by everyone five years or so later?